King Solomon's Carpet (Large Print Book) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Barbara Vine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1993 | Series: Large Print Book

A beautiful woman fleeing a loveless marriage disappears into the crowds of modern London, taking refuge in a Victorian schoolhouse haunted by a dreadful secret. "Beautifully written and hypnotically readable . . . an elegantly designed thiller!"--Wall Street Journal.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Vine (the pseudonymous Ruth Rendell) offers a lyrical, leisurely paced psychological thriller that teems with deftly drawn characters who inhabit a dark world centered in the London Underground.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

King Solomon's magic carpet is the London Underground, running past the disused old school building that houses the most ill- assorted covey that Vine (Ruth Rendell) has brought together since A Fatal Inversion for this updating of Conrad's novel of terrorist conspiracy, The Secret Agent. Tom Murray is a promising musician reduced to illegal busking in Underground stations and a sad little love affair with his accompanist Alice, who left her husband and newborn baby, taking only her violin. Together with Jasper Darne, another dropout from his family who likes to ride on the tops of Underground carriages, and Jed Lowrie, a Safeguard volunteer who's left behind his own family to live for his hunting hawk Abelard, they live in a failed schoolhouse--whose bell tolled for the only time in memory when the headmaster hanged himself from its rope. The school's owned by the old man's grandson, Jarv Stringer, who now passes the time by writing a book on the Underground and taking in waifs and strays while his aunt Cecilia Darne, Jasper's grandmother, quietly declines around the corner under the variously watchful eyes of her relatives and her longtime companion Daphne Bleech-Palmer. The apple of discord in this extended, dysfunctional family is sinister Axel Jonas, who rides the trains with a dancing bear, actually a man named Ivan, until Jasper one day leads him to Jarvis's, where he takes up residence, seduces Alice, and begins to gather details about the operation of the Underground in preparation for a cataclysmic bombing. It's no shame for Vine/Rendell to fall short of her peerless model: the air of foreboding is as expertly invoked as ever, but the story, following one misfit after another but never bringing them very much closer together even at the inevitable tolling of the schoolhouse bell, lacks the momentum of Conrad, or of such earlier triumphs as A Judgment in Stone. Richly textured but slow-moving: a thriller for readers who think it's better to travel hopelessly than to arrive. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: John Curley & Assoc (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792710592
• ISBN-13: 978-0792710592
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,342,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Polite Justice, May 22, 2000

By 

Liz "Birdmother" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Solomon's Carpet (Hardcover)

I either agree or sympathise with all of the previous reviewers. This is a difficult book from the standpoint that without some exposure to the London Underground transit system, one is reading the story from a slight disadvantage. Mind you, it is only a slight obstacle--don't avoid the chance to read this book and enjoy Barbara Vine's fascinating tale of the emotionally disenfranchised denizens of Jarvis Stringer's sheltering old brick home, the former Cambridge School.

If you have read this far, you know the basic plot and are aware of the major players in the drama. So I will leave you with this enticement. It is, in a very odd way, a fun read that goes by all too quickly. As in all of Barbara Vine's novels, justice is served up sooner or later (usually later) and, as always, it is never polite justice. Barbara Vine delivers the kind of justice that one dreams of but rarely ever sees. The last page of this novel is well worth the wait.

A word of warning to the readers who are squeamish around the subject of feeding the animals. The hawk belonging to Jed, Abelard, is especially fond of a certain delicacy that is very hard to envision without a lurching of the stomach. Not for the faint of heart!

On that note, if Ruth Rendell ever reads her reviews on Amazon, and she really should, I hope that they will serve as a justification for no imminent retirement from the world of writing. It would be so hard to live knowing that there wouldn't be another Barbara Vine novel to consume with my usual gusto!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Polite Justice, May 19, 2000

By 

Liz "Birdmother" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Solomon's Carpet (Onyx) (Paperback)

I either agree or sympathise with all of the previous reviewers. This is a difficult book from the standpoint that without some exposure to the London Underground transit system, one is reading the story from a slight disadvantage. Mind you, it is only a slight obstacle--don't avoid the chance to read this book and enjoy Barbara Vine's fascinating tale of the emotionally disenfranchised denizens of Jarvis Stringer's sheltering old brick home, the former Cambridge School.

If you have read this far, you know the basic plot and are aware of the major players in the drama. So I will leave you with this enticement. It is, in a very odd way, a fun read that goes by all too quickly. As in all of Barbara Vine's novels, justice is served up sooner or later (usually later) and, as always, it is never polite justice. Barbara Vine delivers the kind of justice that one dreams of but rarely ever sees. The last page of this novel is well worth the wait.

A word of warning to the readers who are squeamish around the subject of feeding the animals. The hawk belonging to Jed, Abelard, is especially fond of a certain delicacy that is very hard to envision without a lurching of the stomach. Not for the faint of heart!

On that note, if Ruth Rendell ever reads her reviews on Amazon, and she really should, I hope that they will serve as a justification for no imminent retirement from the world of writing. It would be so hard to live knowing that there wouldn't be another Barbara Vine novel to consume with my usual gusto!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Weird, compelling, brilliantly told, August 30, 2002

By 

RachelWalker "RachelW" (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Solomon's Carpet (Onyx) (Paperback)

This story is told quite brilliantly. All the characters are wonderfully drawn, and all are INCREDIBLY interesting. From Jed, the loner who lives on the top floor of the house and keeps his hawk in the garden. To Jarvis, the owner of the house who is obsessed by underground systems and is writing a book chronicling them. To Alice, the young mother who has run away from her humdrum life, leaving her daughter and husband behind. And then there is Tom, the busker who once aimed to study at a musical college, but is now content to play for the armies of people who walk through London's cavernous Tube. Then there is young Jasper, who, along with his friends, finds his thrills amid the bustle of the dangerous underground. And then, Axle. The enigmatic, strange man whom little is known about, and whose secret will cast shadows over all their lives.

The story is told brilliantly, as i say. All the charaters living in the old schoolhouses each have a different part in the story, and rarely do their own seperate stories interact, until the end. It is like watching several little planets revolving around the sun (in this story the sun is the london underground system). Their orbits do not cross, but still they revolve around the main body of the story, until they are finally drawn together.

Rendell skips between each persons's story (each persons story varies greatly) wonderfully, while the reader hardly notices the transition.

The climax is not completely unexpected, but i often find that that is the beauty of Vine/Rendell. You can sometimes see or tell what is going to happen, and you know that absolutely nothing any of the characters can do to prevent the inevitable awfullness.

At first i thought the ending was shocking, and powerful but anticlimatic. Then i realised it is shocking and powerful BECAUSE it is anticlimatic. (Rather like when we meet Hannibal Lecter...we are shocked by him because we were expecting a monster.)